


The Science of Fighting the Forces of Gravity

by NikauRifka



Series: Academy Days [1]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Blood, M/M, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2020-12-24 16:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21102152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikauRifka/pseuds/NikauRifka
Summary: A failed challenge spurs a fast unraveling of all the respect Zim had earned through his years of training at the academy. But more irkens happen to be on his side than he thinks, and maybe, just maybe, he'll realize that it's okay to be fallible.Not that he is, or anything.





	1. Too Proud For That

**Author's Note:**

> This is set before the flashback events on Dooq in the comics with Virooz and of course before the deaths of Miyuki and Spork and before the disastrous events on Devastis.

"Red! Hey! Hey, Red! Heeeey! Hey! Hallooo! Hey, Red!" The tiny invader-in-training bounced, seeking out the attention of the rather tall elite. His magenta eyes sparked with awe when they met with reluctant red ones.

"What do you want, Zim?" Red asked with a sigh, knowing he had dug his own grave by acknowledging the little nuisance. Zim's antennae curled upwards and he smiled with glee, gleaming with delight at the attention he managed to ween.

"Can I sit with you?" He asked after he was already settled down beside the taller irken, knees tucked one on top of the other and pulled up beside himself. The orange rock beneath them was warm from the unyielding sun and he could feel it through his training uniform.

"No," Red mumbled belatedly, but Zim had already started rambling on, talking about his day, about how he felt about other irkens in their group, about current events he'd overheard Commander Poki discussing, about how he ate a creme-filled donut the other day and how incredible it had been, and about whatever else his mind could stumble on at the rapid pace it was running. Red wondered how he didn't exhaust himself to death from the sheer speed that his tongue was moving. How could his PAK even handle it without crashing from data overload right then and there? It wasn't like it had never happened before.

"Hey, Zim," Red managed between Zim's incessant one-sided conversation.

The tiny irken looked up at him with light in his eyes. "Yes?" He asked, completely oblivious to the other's annoyance.

"Don't you have anything better to do?"

Zim considered this question very seriously, a claw set to his chin and his eyes narrowed in deep thought. He mulled it over for a moment, then blinked up at Red and answered simply, "No."

Red sighed and propped his head up on his hand, preparing to endure more of Zim's endless ramblings, before a brilliant idea popped into his head.

"Hey Zim?" He asked slyly, a quiet smirk tugging at his lips, "Want to do something to impress me?"

Aforementioned elite looked up at him with big, sparkling eyes and nodded without hesitation.

"You ever tried Doom's Climb?"

Zim's glance involuntarily went to the enormous, sheer plateau of red and yellow sandstone that towered behind them. The challenge was to scale the nearly perpendicular wall without any use of technology, including the challenged irken's PAK. No one had ever made it to the top.

Zim smirked, not a doubt in his mind as he looked up at the top of that mound. Why hadn't anyone challenged him sooner? He was the best of the best, after all. Without another word, he darted toward it on tiny black-clad legs.

Red followed behind at a much slower pace, snickering to himself as he thought of the irken's future humiliation. Maybe with a healthy amount of shame, he would learn his place and wouldn't bother Red all the time. Or, if he was especially fortunate, he wouldn't bother Red at all.

By the time Red arrived in the shadow of the natural obelisk, a crowd had already formed to watch Irk's smallest elite soldier attempt what was assumed impossible. To everyone's surprise, Zim was already 10 feet above them and was effortlessly gliding from one jutting stone to the next.

"What is he doing??" Another short irken, pudgier but only slighter taller than Zim who Red believed to be called Skoodge, stumbled on the scene with nervous excitement.

"I challenged him to Doom's Climb," Red said with a shrug, disregarding the gathered crowd's tense disposition. Everyone looked at him with wide eyes. They all knew Zim, they all knew that bad things happened when Zim was around, and they all knew that Zim would do anything to win someone's approval, and that he would certainly break the bounds of _anything_ to win _Red's_ approval.

And they all knew Red had just sentenced him to his death. No one liked Zim, but that didn't mean that, as a majority, they wanted him to _die_. Any dead irken was a wasted irken, after all.

Purple joined his tall friend and looked up the wall. "That's Zim up there?" He asked. Red nodded, nervous sweat prickling at the base of his antennae as he realized what he had done.

Zim clambered halfway up, and they all started mumbling amongst themselves. The halfway mark wasn't a record, but it was further than anyone had expected the little irken to get.

Then Zim made the nearly-fatal mistake of looking down. His head spun, forcing him to hold his breath as he clung onto the crumbling sandstone. He noticed his audience, and he bit his lip until he could taste blood, sweet as it smeared onto his tongue, and he used the numb pain to steady himself and continue upwards.

"No one's ever finished Doom's Climb!" A soldier cried.

"He's going to die!" Another pitched, making the elite above's head spin.

"It's fine. If he starts to fall he can always just use his PAK legs." Red waved off the concern like it were a wasp hovering around his head.

"I don't know," Purple warned, "He's far too proud for that."

Zim halted, hand raised in midair as he reached for another handhold. He could feel the rock beneath him as it collapsed into dust under his small weight. His breath knocked out of him as he lost his grip, the air whipping around him loud against his antennae as he fell upside down and backwards to the ground on which he started.

The gathered crowd bounced back, clearing what they naturally knew to be the space needed for the gore that was about to splatter before them.

Of course Purple had been right, Zim was far too proud to use his PAK legs for such a challenge that prohibited their use, even as he came crashing to the dirt, creating a Zim-shaped crater that the tiny irken collapsed into. Pink sprayed up into the air all around him, falling just short of where the closest bystander stood with a look of horror.

The crowd went silent, barely a gasp between them as they waited, each and every one of them certain he was dead. Then, unbelievably, Zim's leg twitched like a dying beetle and a pained groan slipped from his slightly parted lips. He pushed himself up on shaky, broken arms with blood dripping down his lip and smeared across his bruised face.

It was like a switch had been turned. The moment the onlookers realized he was alive, they all started to grumble and chatter with mocking insults at yet another irken who failed Doom's Climb.

"That was pretty pathetic," Red told the injured elite coldly. Zim's eyes widened and gazed up at him like he were about to cry, his cheeks dusted blue in humiliation where his skin wasn't covered in blood and scrapes, but he collapsed back down from pain and exhaustion before the tears could escape him.

"Invader-In-Training Zim!" Came the familiarly stern voice of Commander Poki, prompting the surrounding irkens to scatter to the wind, "What have I said about Doom's Climb!?"

"That it is an unnecessary risk on a life that belongs to the Irken Empire," Zim croaked in a monotonous voice, eyes screwed tight as he remained otherwise still on the hot ground.

Red watched from the distance as Purple pulled on his gauntlet, trying to get him to abandon the scene. After a moment he finally relented and followed after his friend.

"Get up, soldier," Commander Poki ordered, claws on her hips.

Zim stumbled to his feet, the ground appearing to spin beneath him so fast he nearly lost balanced and collapsed back down. His commander grabbed him by the shoulder just before he fell, hoisting him back up.

"Who challenged you to this pathetic game?" She demanded as Zim supported his entire wait on her one arm holding him up.

"Invader-In-Training Red," Zim told her, chin raised high despite the pain ringing through his entire body, his PAK trying to shut him down for vital repairs.

"Oh," Poki said, her stern disposition suddenly falling away, "Well, uh..."

Zim looked up at her with confusion. The last person to challenge someone to Doom's Climb had been recoded and banished to Dooxisi to live out the rest of their days in eternal boredom. Now Commander Poki looked at an utter loss.

"Well," she repeated, clearing her throat, "Good job following orders from a taller, then, I suppose."

Then she retreated her arm and Zim collapsed back on the sandstone ground.

"Go with the others, we will do training in 35 timestamps. I do not want to see you sleeping on the job, understood?"

"Yes, Commander Poki!" Zim shouted just as he always did, despite the fact that he was curling in on himself as his vitals leaked into a pool around him.

Commander Poki sighed and rubbed her temple. She looked up, catching a glimpse of one of her soldiers spying from behind a boulder.

"You," she said, pointing at the irken as he peeked his head out, "Invader-In-Training Skoodge," she identified, "Take Zim back to basecamp and get him fixed up. But I want him fresh and back out here by noon tomorrow, understood?"

"Yes, Commander Poki!" Skoodge saluted stiffly as he emerged from his hiding place. He looked down at Zim and the growing blood puddle, wincing. "Um..."

Poki waved a hand dismissively. "You may stay with him until that time as well. I expect you to bring him back in fighting shape, understood? We can't afford to lose him. Honestly, he's the most promising of any of you sorry smeets."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me explain myself. This is set before the major bad stuff Zim caused ever happened (besides everything he did as a smeet) and considering Zim was banished to Foodcourtia instead of just killed, I feel like Irk probably values every irken life, not because they're sentient lifeforms but because they're resources. Nobody here likes Zim besides Poki and Skoodge, they just don't want him to die. Yet.

Zim felt as if his squeedlyspooch was attempting to turn inside out. He groaned out his complaint and assessed the damage through his PAK.

His spine was broken in three different places, each piece skewed out of proper position. His lower left arm had been shattered, his right snapped in two at the joint, the bone jutting out of his skin. He counted 9 different broken ribs, the remaining 5 at the very least cracked. His legs had both been severely broken and mangled, but that had been the first thing his PAK had fixed. Mobility was ranked above all else.

The back of his skull was shattered. He had a severe concussion, his frontal lobe was leaking fluids into his brain cavity. His squeedlyspooch was torn open in three different places, the entire organ twisted and folded over on itself. His ocular implants needed manual adjustments. His skin had wide gashes like he were the rubber shell of a water ballon that had been dropped and spilled open over a hot summer pavement, not that he knew what a water balloon was. His-

He ignored the ongoing list of physical injuries and did a scan of his PAK instead. It had suffered minor dents and scrapes, but the delicate software within remained unharmed. He sighed with relief and curled into the soft warmth he'd found himself in, eyes shut tight against his pain as he bordered on consciousness. It wasn't until he was set down on a thinly padded cot bed that he realized he was being carried.

He blinked his eyes open, his vision swimming from the popped wires that prohibited them from operating properly. He finally got the universe to still as he found himself face to face with a stubby irken he easily recognized.

"Skoodge," he croaked, or maybe he only thought to say it. "Skoodge," he repeated, making sure it was out loud this time. Skoodge looked down at him with concern. Zim pushed the fellow elite out of his face as he tried to stand up.

"You only have so long to rest, Zim," Skoodge told him sternly, "You have to be back out there by midday tomorrow."

"Whatever, I'm fine," Zim grunted, falling to his feet with a pained huff, "Let's go back."

Skoodge sighed. He'd been raised all the way from smeethood with this stubborn irken. He knew just how hard it was to convince Zim to do anything he didn't want to.

"No," Skoodge said, guiding him back to sit on the edge of the cot.

"I don't know about you," Zim snarled, though his body creaked gratefully to be siting down again, "But I'm not going to sit here and _fall behind_ on the most important training of my life!"

Skoodge just folded his arms over his chest and stared. "Commander Poki ordered you to rest," he declared.

Zim's determined look fell, but with it so did his pained one. "Oh," he sighed, scooting backwards to lie back down. His broken spine thanked him.

"It won't be that bad," Skoodge assured him, "If you allow yourself to relax you should be fixed up long before then and-"

"And have everyone know exactly why I'm down for the count?" Zim snarled, cutting his comrade off, "Have everyone know that, not only did I _fail_, but I'm going to be a smeet about it and take the day off?"

"You got further up than anyone has ever gotten," Skoodge pointed out to him, his voice awestricken at the very idea, "I don't think that was a failure."

"You're suppose to reach the _top_, Skoodge," Zim told him, eyes narrowed into a glare, "Do I need to spell that out to you?"

"No one's ever made it to the top," Skoodge said quietly.

Zim turned his back to him then, curling up to fall into a regenerative slumber. It was his was of saying that didn't mean anything to him. Of course it wouldn't mean anything to him. He'd just made a fool of himself in front of the only irken he truly wanted to impress.

Actually, he'd made a fool of himself in front of his entire platoon, including his commander, who seemed to be the only irken who had any sort of patience with him. Besides Skoodge, of course, but what did Skoodge's approval mean to Zim?

He bit his lip to keep it from quivering and finally allowed his PAK to knock him out.

•~~~~•~~~~•~~~~•

The wilderness of Irk was just as deadly and volatile if not more so than the dominant species of the planet themselves. It was a treacherous hike up a nearly vertical cliff side, loose pink dirt and a red grass-like plant slicking the trail as a steady line of young irkens, just smeets really, marched exhaustedly through the thicket.

"Move it! Move it!" Barked their guide as she marched with them. She was a real elite soldier, forehead tattoo and everything, and Zim had stared up at her in awe when he first saw her, thinking, _I'm going to be one of those someday._

"Move! Move! Move!," she shouted, shrill voice echoing through the basin they had all just traipsed through, "Come on! If you're too slow you'll be out here come nightfall and be food for the graxes. If you're lucky they'll eat you PAK first, save you the agony of being digested over and over again. Does that sound fun to any of you? _No?_ Then move! Come on! You can go faster than that!"

After nearly a full day of their very first excursion, Zim was finally beginning to find himself sore and out of breath. He trailed behind where the guide barked out her terror-inducing motivations and pressed his hand against a boulder to pause and recollect his energy.

"Aww," Came the mocking voice of a rather tall irken fledgling, red eyes looking down smugly on Zim from where he stood upon a hoverboard, "Is the little smeet tired?"

Zim just growled. "We're not... allowed to... use technology, idiot," he warned as he panted, "We're not even allowed to use our PAKs."

"_You're_ not allowed," Purple, Red's equally as tall compatriot who hovered beside him corrected. Zim huffed, ducking past his taller peers and continuing the arduous march.

"Don't touch the deadly efezbrush," the elite soldier at the front snapped, pointing a claw at a bush composed of extended branches that reached out across the tight trails they bordered. The branches were a pale purple covered in a sharp white fuzz that made Zim itch just to look at. "Of course, being irken and thus the most resilient species in the universe, it will not kill you, but it will knock you unconscious and NO ONE IS GOING TO CARRY YOU."

Zim looked at the towering plant before him with a glare. He ducked under it easily as other irkens had to wind around rocks and thorny dead trees to avoid it.

"I'll tell them," Zim told Red and Purple with a smirk, his head held high despite his exhaustion, "That you're cheating. They'll make you do it _all_ over again."

"Yeah right," Red scoffed, although he looked at Purple in a silent panic. Purple just shrugged. Red grimaced and the pair sped ahead of Zim on their hoverboards.

Zim rolled his eyes. He knew he was better than them, even if they were a little taller than him. Someday he'd hit his growth spurt, and then he would be tallest, and he would rub it in their faces. He made a note in his PAK, reminding him that, once he ruled Irk, he would make them do this hike all over again, blindfolded, bootless, and gloveless. And he would be the one mocking them comfortably in the air.

But today, he hiked. He paused, supporting himself with a hand on his knee as he bent down to try and catch his breath again. He felt his energy renew, and got up to start walking again, but just as he looked up, a purple and white branch was snapping back in his face.

He skidded backwards from the force of it colliding with his small frame, landing on his PAK with a grunt and a wheeze and sliding a ways down the mountain, but before he could manage to stand back up, his vision was already swirling black. He heard Red and Purple's mocking laughter as he fell out of consciousness.

Their commander had been right, nobody had carried him.

•~~~~•~~~~•~~~~•

Zim grunted as he rolled around on his cot bed. Now that he wasn't overcome with the pain of falling from 30 stories high, he had enough of his other senses to notice just how uncomfortable the mattress was. He squirmed, kicking at the sheets, flipping the pillow over, until he was stopped abruptly by the feeling of collision.

He groaned, rolling his eyes open to see he had fallen to the ground. He rubbed the back of his head and looked up to see a bored looking Skoodge peeking over the top of a magazine.

He reassessed the physical damage. Three of his ribs were still cracked and he would have trouble bending his right arm for awhile, but he was otherwise fine. His internal clock told him he had been asleep for 439 timestamps, awaking just a few hours before noon.

He rolled to his feet as if he were in battle and made to repair the damage to his ocular implants, only to blink as he realized they were working perfectly fine.

"Woah," he mused, glancing around and finding the room appeared perfectly normal.

"What's that?" Skoodge asked him, quirking an antennae.

"My eyes," he explained, "They were busted before I went into sleep mode."

"Oh," Skoodge laughed, "Yeah, I fixed them for you."

Zim stared at him. "You fixed my eyes?" He growled, rather hostile.

"Yes?" Skoodge said, confused at Zim's anger.

"In my sleep??" Zim snapped.

"Yes," Skoodge reiterated, "It was the most effective use of my time."

Zim huffed, suddenly no longer in the mood to argue just for the sake of being difficult as he remembered the previous day's events. He glanced over at the other elite, meeting his eye.

"Did it look cool?" He asked him hopefully.

Skoodge giggled at his vague question. "Did what look cool?"

"When I fell," Zim snapped as if it was obvious, "Did it look cool or just dumb?"

"I thought it looked cool," Skoodge said with a grin. '_I think everything you do is cool_,' he didn't add.

Zim nodded, seeming content with that answer. "Well," he said, "Let's go back then. You can't expect me to just sit here until noon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote part of this right after a 3 mile hike through North Idaho backcountry. For those who aren't familiar with the area, the elevation change was equivalent to walking up 30 flights of stairs, but like if those stairs were wet and covered in thick brush. It was hell, and every time I had to stop to catch my breath, I was mentally writing this fic.
> 
> Instead of graxes is was bears and instead of efezbrush it was endless amounts of huckleberry bushes. Neither were nearly as intimidating as their fictional counterparts.


	3. Food For the Graxes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is incredibly messy, but I've fallen in love with the idea and I can't stop.

Zim came to with a pudgy green face hovering over him, a claw brushing something delicately off of his cheek. Skoodge was looking at him wide eyed as he blushed and mouthed something that looked insistent.

"Eh?" Zim groaned, antennae pitching forward to hear him over the ringing noise that seemed to engulf them.

"Zim," Skoodge said, a terrified look upon his youthful features, "Come on, wake up, we gotta go before its nightfall."

With that, Zim's head shot up, almost knocking into Skoodge's as he did so. He hopped to his feet, glancing up at the darkening sky. He looked up the steep trail riddled with that Tallest-forsaken death-bush, but the rest of the group was nowhere to be seen.

"What happened?" Skoodge asked.

Zim nearly shrieked with fury. "Those- _Ahh!_" he grabbed his antennae in his fists, yanking down so hard he found himself reeling at the painful sensation. He fought with himself to use his words instead of just screaming like he wanted to. "They think they're just SO GREAT because they're a little taller than everyone else!"

"Yeah, I get that," Skoodge said, empathetic to Zim's rage.

"They think they can stop Zim?!" He shouted up the trail, "They think _wrong_." He started marching back up the trail, his hands balled into tiny little fists at his side, "When I get back I'm gonna expose their cheating little spooches for what they _really are!!_"

"But Zim," Skoodge said, following behind nervously. When he didn't continue his thought, Zim looked back at the pudgy smeet. Skoodge pointed up at the sky and Zim's face fell into one of terror as his raspberry eyes followed his gesture.

"We can't navigate in the dark," Skoodge told him, "We haven't got our implants yet"

Zim just shushed him. "That doesn't matter," he said urgently, his face going pale, "We have to find shelter."

"We can just build a fire right over there," Skoodge said, pointing at a portion of flat rock over to his right.

Zim shook his head and swallowed the forming lump in his throat. "The graxes," he said, and Skoodge's worried expression twisted into one of sheer horror.

"I thought they weren't real!" He squeaked, holding his hands to his chest, "I thought they just told us that to scare us!"

"No, they're real," Zim said, "Remember Glik?"

Skoodge nodded quickly, remembering their old smeetery mate who'd snuck up to the surface once.

"That's why she never came back."

"She was eaten by a graxes?"

Zim nodded forlornly. "We need to find shelter."

They wandered off trail, glancing between every rock in a seemingly hopeless search for a cave. There had to be one somewhere, Zim had told Skoodge, since irkens were evolutionarily a burrowing species. Their primitive ancestors had to have left something behind for them to dive into.

"Aha!" Zim cried, kicking stray pebbles and boulders out of the way, "I found one!"

"Great!" Skoodge cheered as he rushed over to the other irken.

Zim dug at the ground with all four limbs, kicking and clawing whatever separated him from security behind him for it to tumble down the steep mountainside he'd spent all day hiking up. He was shimmying into the tiny entrance he'd made just as the sun disappeared over the horizon.

Skoodge had to dig the hole bigger to squeeze all the way through, all to Zim's vocalized dismay, but he got in just as Zim started covering the gap with a boulder that was much bigger than his tiny frame.

Skoodge helped him push and eventually the stone covered their only exit, little trickles of light just barely poking in through the gaps. Hopefully the wild irken predators couldn't sniff them out from beneath the soil.

Zim huffed, sliding down the stone wall and bringing his knees up to his chest. He shivered as his body began to relax, allowing him to finally pick up on the dropping temperature. It continued on until he found himself in a constant quivering, his teeth chattering together as he recoiled from the cold.

"You're cold?" Skoodge noticed, frowning like it hurt him to watch.

"I'm fine," Zim hissed, but he could see his breath take form in front of him.

"I'm cold, too. I'll light a fire," Skoodge announced, a port in his PAK sliding open.

"No!" Zim snapped so aggressively that Skoodge instantly retreated the mechanical leg that had only barely peeked out of its sheathe. "You can't use your PAK until we get back!" He chastised, "Or we fail the assignment! Do you really want to fail your first surface assignment?"

"Oh," Skoodge stammered. He hugged his arms around himself, shivering as well. "I didn't think about that."

"Here," Zim sighed, remembering all the survival courses they'd taken before they were even allowed to breach the surface. He held out his arm, inviting Skoodge to come sit beside him.

Skoodge did so without complaint, wrapping an arm around Zim, pulling him closer until the smaller fledgling let out an annoyed squeak. Skoodge chirped in apology, resting his cheek between Zim's antennae.

"I-If we remain in sleep mode until sunrise, w-we won't need as much heat," Zim reasoned, stuttering around his chattering teeth, "It should be safe enough to go back out in 480 timestamps, so set your PAK timer for then."

"You're so smart," Skoodge mused, his breath tickling the base of Zim's feeler.

"How did you even fall so behind, anyway, Skoodge?" Zim questioned, finding comfort in the gentle warmth of his head against his comrade's chest.

"Well there were these little glowing bugs we passed by," Skoodge explained, a blush spreading across his cheeks, "I got a little distracted."

"That's so like you, Skoodge," Zim hummed, sleep mode shutting down his consciousness as he spoke. Skoodge followed right along with him.

•~~~~•~~~~•~~~~•

"Invader-In-Training Zim reporting for duty," Zim saluted, chin pointed out, his other hand behind his back as his commander turned to scrutinize him.

"Full report, soldier," she ordered, looking him up and down, eyes lingering on any remaining cuts and bruises.

"My shell is 96.97% healed, and my PAK is undamaged," he told her, "I should be at peak health with just a few more timestamps of rest. However, that is unnecessary. I can carry out any order perfectly fine in my current state."

"That'll have to do," Commander Poki gave him a stiff nod, a silent 'at ease'. "I don't want you to so much as _think_ about doing something so ridiculously stupid _ever_ again, understood?"

"Yes, Commander Poki," Zim acknowledged, volume significantly lower than his typical screech.

Poki noticed with a frown. This was her most rambunctious soldier, one she'd been training all the way from his first surface mission. Of course she picked up on his unnatural despondency.

"Is something wrong, soldier?" She asked, the closest she could come to sounding concerned.

"No, Commander," Zim assured her, still in that same uncharacteristic tone.

She eyed him over, one ocular implant narrowed, the other widened into a large pink oval. Eventually she spoke.

"I expect your performance will not suffer because of recent events," she stated, voice low so only Zim could pick it up, "You are an irken Elite. You are the best of the best. You do not give up because of a little humiliation."

"Yes, Commander," Zim said, voice completely unchanged from the last time he said it.

"Especially not _you_," Poki continued, "_You_ are going to be the _best_ of the best of the best. You cannot afford this delay. Understood?"

Zim lowered his gaze to meet her eye, his attentive posture slipping as he blinked at her.

"_Understood?_" she repeated with a growl.

"Yes, Commander Poki!" Zim shouted, jolting back to his stance.

"Dismissed," she said, and Zim darted out of the hastily pitched tent, the door flapping in his wind.

•~~~~•~~~~•~~~~•

No matter how much he replayed the automatic PAK recording of Commander Poki's last words to himself, Zim couldn't help but avoid the eyes of the other invaders-in-training. Everyone gazed upon him like he was a joke, the shock of his survival long since dissipated as any sort of point of interest.

Not that nobody thought he was a joke before Doom's Climb, he just hadn't noticed it up until now.

He didn't really care what the others thought of him. He saw them all as just meaningless blurbs. There was Larb who stood out, having sufficient talent in feats of strength, and Tenn who had more than a few times bested Zim in hand to hand combat, but besides the small group of peers he saw as being worthy enough to keep his attention for more than a few seconds, he didn't care what anyone though.

But there were two certain tall elites within their platoon who had never proven themselves to be worthy of even a glance from Zim's almighty self, and yet he couldn't help but yearn for their attention. Every semi-glance downward felt like a victory, causing his spooch to flutter with a feeling he couldn't quite place.

The feeling was acceptance, existential _acknowledgment_. But when had he become the insignificant one?

Commander Poki announced the two irkens who would be sparring first. Zim's name wasn't mentioned, so he hardly paid attention as Flobee and Purple engaged in a halfhearted battle. Tiny Flobee clearly had the upper hand as he darted nimbly around the other - Zim admired his agility, Flobee was amongst the few worthy of Zim's attention - but even though he could win the battle effortlessly, he moved noticeably slower than usual, refraining from making any actual attacks. He wasn't the only one; most of the platoon tended to let the taller elites win. It made Zim sick to watch as a Purple eventually managed to clumsily pin a much more capable Flobee to the ground in a hold that the smaller irken could have easily escaped. He didn't, and Purple was announced the winner. Zim scowled at the notion, even though he would have done the exact same thing.

"Zim and Spleen," Commander Poki called out the next names as the other two exited the box from different sides, the taller one grinning like he were incredible while the other had his teeth bared at the ground. Zim scoffed as he strutted into the box that was marked with sticks positioned in the sand. Spleen always put up a good fight, but he was never a match for Zim.

Commander Poki stuck her claws in her mouth and blew, emitting a chittering whistle and announcing the start of the next match.

Zim instantly ducked, rolling to the side as Spleen made an instant attack. He'd only fallen for that the first time. He came back up as Spleen stumbled but quickly regained his footing, spinning around to face Zim in his new position.

Zim's antennae twitched as he heard a quiet snicker from the observing irkens. Were they laughing at him? He ducked beneath Spleen's arm as he shot out a punch, narrowly avoiding the attack but stumbling as he rolled back onto his feet.

"You use to be a good fighter," Spleen snickered, voice too quiet to meet any but Zim's antennae.

"And you use to be funny," Zim bit back, dodging another strike.

"I guess it's true what they say, that failure has a domino effect," he said with a toothy smirk, jumping at the smaller elite.

Zim narrowly scurried out of the way, landing a kick to his opponent's side. His face burned with humiliation as he picked up on mumbled conversations in the crowd. They all seemed to agree with what Spleen had said.

Spleen hardly acknowledged the attack as he came at him again.

Spleen caught Zim's arm as it came up to block his face. Zim's other arm shot out to attack, claws bared as they slid across Spleen's face, pink lines left behind in their wake. Spleen flinched back as his blood beaded to the surface of the fresh wound, but he held tight to Zim's arm. He caught the other one before it could fully retreat, pulling Zim close to him and kneeing him in the spooch.

Zim gasped, beginning to stumble backwards only to be caught by the grip on his limbs. He kicked out, swiping Spleen's feet underneath him. He fell on top of Zim, knocking them both to the ground.

Spleen continued to hold Zim's arms down, his claws sinking in through his gloves. "You're on the defensive," Spleen pointed out, surprised despite his earlier jibes, "Guess one failure really does lead to another, huh? Or maybe you're just more defective than everyone thought."

Zim growled at that, kicking the larger elite in his gut, giving him enough of a break to yank his arms free. He shoved Spleen off of him while he was still stunned and the two tussled in the dirt, their neat purple uniforms dusted a dark red and smudged a bright pink.

Spleen rolled on top of Zim, pinning him again with his larger weight. Zim knocked his elbow into Spleen's jaw. Spleen dragged matching claw marks across Zim's face, deep and slow as Zim cried out. Both their blood mingled in the sand.

Then Spleen grabbed ahold of the smaller irken's antenna, pushing his opposite forearm up against Zim's throat to pin him fully down. Zim clawed frantically at his arm and Spleen yanked his antenna hard.

Zim instantly paused his ceaseless kicking and clawing, eyes bulging wide and mouth falling open. They remained like that for moments, time seeming to slow down as Zim froze up completely. Then he screamed, his eyes screwing shut and his head rolling backwards. Spleen pulled harder, the sound of Zim's feeler ripping from his skull loud enough for even the furthest back in the crowd to hear.

Zim kicked and clawed, unable to grab at the hand that was mercilessly tearing apart the sensitive appendage. His shrieks echoed through the cavern as tears rolled from his eyes, even after Commander Poki whistled around her fingers and Skutch and Larb dragged a shocked Spleen off of the howling invader-in-training.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't mean to make Spleen such a bad guy, I promise. But I mean these are irkens training to be invaders, they're all bad guys really.
> 
> No I love Spleen, almost as much as I love Tenn and Larb <s>not nearly as much as I love Gashloog, though.</s> I just have a thing for minor characters.


	4. No Insect is Going to Change That

  
They'd felt like champions as they crossed back into civilization, emerging from the savage wilderness of Irk like wild beasts. They stumbled back to their home base on sore feet, faces pale and bodies quivering from the cold night. Two smeets grinned giddily at their own survival even as they hissed and quaked with pain, gleaming up at their commander proudly.

She looked them over, seeming amused at the very prospect.

"I really didn't think you'd be back," she cackled, "Thought you'd be graxes food for sure. They could really use the meal, you know."

"Sorry to disappoint," Zim sneered with his hands on his hips. Skoodge stuck close to his side, like the two were fused at the hip.

"Might as well come get your victory snacks then," Poki said, turning and leading the way.

"Did you hear that, Skoodge?" Zim bounced excitedly after her, "Real snacks!"

"Like donuts and licky sticks?" Skoodge smiled widely.

"I think so!" Zim exclaimed. They raced to the snack dispenser, brawling over who got to get theirs first. They rolled about on the floor, shoving the other out of the way when they got too close. In the end, Zim came out victorious, standing atop his companion's prone form as he licked happily at a white sugar stick.

"Zim," Commander Poki's stern voice broke him out of his undying self-pride. She motioned for him to join her around the corner as Skoodge plugged his PAK into the vending machine and got his own delicious reward.

Zim looked up at her seriously when he caught up with her. He bared his teeth and said, "If you want to know why I was a whole day late, its Red and Purple's fault. They cheated, then one of them threw an efezbrush stick at me." He crossed his little arms angrily, a hatred burning in his sclera.

"That is good to know," Poki nodded, taking in the information even though she knew there was nothing she could do with it. The Control Brains wouldn't let her touch the two brats, claiming they were Irk's next greatest leaders. She always scoffed at that. If the idiots managed to live that long, maybe. She continued, "However that's not what I wanted to speak with you about."

Zim cocked his head, his anger dropping into a more curious look.

"This is going to sound harsh," she told him, "But I was glad when you didn't return."

"What?" Zim cried, reflexively jumping back, "But why? I'm great!"

Poki rolled her eyes, but smiled lightly at the fledgling she found herself in charge of. "I thought it would be better for you to go out easy like that," she told him, "It's far better than what could await you here."

Zim snickered. "You're funny," he told her, oblivious as a smeet without a PAK, "What bad could await me here? I'm gonna be Tallest someday, and everything will be great!"

Poki eyed him over. "You want to be Tallest?" She asked with concern.

Zim gave her a sharp nod. He looked completely serious, his chin raised high in a perfect facsimile of an elite soldier.

Poki sighed and rubbed her temple. "Things are going to be harder for you than they will be for everyone else, you know," she said, voice a near whisper as she knelt down, "Because of your... Bug"

"My bug?" Zim asked at his normal volume, completely missing the point of her hushed tone.

"It's going to get harder now," Commander Poki reiterated, "Much, much harder. You're going to have to do better than anyone else. You'll have to *be* better than everyone else. Do you understand?"

"I already _am_ better than everyone else," he said with annoyance in his squeaky voice, "No insect is going to change that."

•~~~~•~~~~•~~~~•

It took the effort of five different irkens to drag Zim out of the sparring box, along with a harshly barked order from Commander Poki for him to finally quit screaming. The moment he did, his world was engulfed in a loud ringing and a horrible pain atop his head.

"While it is highly frowned upon to so ruthlessly attack an irken's antennae during a sparing match," he heard his commander state to the rest of the soldiers, effortlessly turning the horrible downfall of a battle into a lesson. "This has been an excellent example of just how vulnerable they really are. Always watch out, don't ever assume your opponent will fight honorably."

The soldiers mumbled amongst themselves, glancing at the quivering bloody heap that was Zim.

"Take a break, everyone," Poki continued, "The next match will be in five."

The elites dispersed, all avoiding the tiny maimed irken aside from Spleen, who approached him with a regretful frown on his face.

"Sorry, Zim," he said, kneeling beside the small irken curled in on himself and clutching his head, "I kind of lost myself there. Truce?"

Zim jerked up at that, looking at Spleen with fire in his eyes.

"_Truce?_" he spat in an unsteady, pitched voice as humiliating tears sheeted over his eyes and drooled down his hot cheeks, "No way. There will be a rematch, and don't you think even for a second that you're gonna get away with something like that again."

Spleen rolled his eyes and got up. "Alright," he said with a shrug, bounding off to join the other elites.

And of course there was Skoodge left behind, standing right beside him and offering a hand to help him up. Zim hissed, his good antenna laying flat against his head while the other hung limply to the side, and got up on his own.

He swayed, nearly losing his footing at the change in his balance, but caught himself, stalking angrily past Skoodge and towards the opposite direction that the rest of the platoon had gone. 

"Don't follow me," he snarled without looking back. He didn't want Skoodge following him at the hip, trying to cheer him up with his horrible sappy _feelings_. He just needed to be alone in silence until the awful ringing stopped.

He hiked far past the usual areas of loitering and into a field of soft orange dirt bordered by small sun-shielding plateaus. He dropped to his knees where one of the smooth-topped hills met with the flat earth, baring his claws and digging fervently at the sand.

It had always been such a relaxing pastime, as he found out. It gave him a sense of simplicity that he didn't usually like to accept, like his sentience was out the window and he only had to focus on the one instinct. Using his main organic weapon to dig felt almost like he was fulfilling his primitive purpose. Eat, sleep, dig, breed, survive. All but one of those had been thrown out the window centuries ago, like they had abandoned their entire reason to exist in favor of a new one. Snack, train, kill, grow, conquer. That's what it was now. Sometimes, it gave Zim a headache.

He dug until he'd created a sizable tunnel, just big enough for him to crawl into without being seen by any passersby. He let himself tumble into it, rolling head first until he landed with an _oof_ and all he could hear was his own breathing and the painful ringing in his limp antenna.

•~~~~•~~~~•~~~~•

"Can you hear?" Commander Poki questioned, poking a claw at Zim's injured feeler.

Zim stood before her as he always did, his hands clasped behind his back, feet spread apart, chin raised proudly in the air, antennae- antenn_a_ pointing squarely behind him at a 180° angle.

"Only out of the good one," Zim reported stoically.

"Does it hurt?"

Zim paused. It had been agonizing for the first 60 timestamps, all the way until that horrible ringing finally faded. Now he just felt nothing, not even the heat of the sun, not even his fingers against it as he subconsciously smoothed it out, just to make sure it was still there. It made his spooch tighten at the numbness. He decided he'd rather have pain than nothing at all.

Zim shook his head, swallowing hard. "Not anymore," he said.

Poki gave him a tight frown. "Can it feel anything at all?" She asked.

"Negative," Zim growled, annoyance bubbling up.

"Can you move it?"

"If I could move it, it wouldn't be drooping at the side of my head like I'm some sort of defective!" Zim snapped angrily. He was sick of being asked so many questions he could only half hear. He just wanted it fixed, he wanted the feeling of it back.

Expectedly, Commander Poki struck him across the face.

He let out a yelp as he flinched back, but he forced himself to return at attention even with his throat tightening and filling him with a desire to just curl up in a ball and never get up again.

"Do _not_ use that tone with me," Poki growled, "And don't you _ever_ call yourself that, do you understand me? _Ever_."

"Yes, Commander Poki," Zim said in a pitch that was an entire octave higher than his usual voice, fighting the urge to rub at his sore cheek. He wanted to be back in his tunnel, never to emerge into daylight again. For the first time ever, he wanted to fully and completely disappear.

"Dismissed," Poki growled. Zim flinched back at her anger and ducked out of the tent.

Skoodge was there to meet him on the other side, a sympathetic frown plastered to his face. Zim ignored it and shoved past him.

"Zim," Skoodge complained, following behind him.

"What's the point, Skoodge?" He growled, kicked at the dirt and sending red dust flying up around him. He coughed and reeled back from it, but repeated the action out of spite. "I'm basically defec-" he cut himself off, Commander Poki's last order replaying in his head. He cleared his throat and tried again, "I'm basically useless now."

"You're not useless," Skoodge said in a small voice, finally catching up with the invader-in-training.

"I'm half deaf!" Zim snarled, grabbing and pulling on his defunct antenna for emphasis, "What good is a half deaf irken who can't even scale a 60 story wall??"

Skoodge frowned at him. He looked really convincing as he reached out and brushed back Zim's good antenna comfortingly, but Zim didn't want any of his useless, un-irken-like pity.

"Zim, I-" Skoodge sighed, retracting his arm slowly.

"I didn't think you'd give up that easily," a familiar voice scoffed, and Skoodge huffed and looked down at the sandy ground. Zim had to practically spin full circle to identify which direction it had come from. His eyes finally landed with fire on a tall purple-eyed elite.

Zim narrowed his eyes as Purple approached with a carefree look on his face.

"What, two failures and suddenly you're no longer the great and powerful Zim?" Purple cackled loudly, "How's that suppose to work?"

Zim just eyed him, taken aback.

"No, don't get me wrong, it's annoying as a vortian smeet," Purple continued as he finally came to a stop towering above the small elite, "But I'm starting to think all this self pity is even worse than your arrogance. Seriously, it's upsetting."

"What do you want?" Zim hissed, claws balled into fists at his side. He hated that he had to crane his head just to hear him, his good antenna sticking straight up to pick up on the sound.

"Go fight Spleen again, show him who's boss," Purple said with a scoff. He folded his arms over his chest and rolled back on his heals.

"I _can't_ fight you insolent fool!" Zim screeched, pointing a claw at his head, "Do you see what he did to me!?"

"If that's really all it takes to incapacitate the '_great and powerful Zim_' then maybe I should just yank the other one out and be done with it for good." He reached out a hand, mockingly knocking the edge of his claw against the up-pointed feeler.

"Don't you touch me!" Zim hissed, scurrying backwards and crouching into a fighting stance.

Purple laughed. "So you do still have some fight in you. I was starting to think you were finally broken."

"Zim is not defective!" He shouted, still tense and ready to brawl.

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Purple waved a hand, "Go fight Spleen now and give us some real entertainment. And stop caring what people think," he added with a disgusted grimace, "Self-conscious looks ugly on you." 


	5. Self Conscious Looks Ugly On You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha whoops sorry this took so long to update

"SPLEEN!" Zim shouted, shoving disgruntled irkens to the side as he made his way to the front of the crowd gathered to watched the current sparring match. Tenn and Red were going at it with virulent hostility. Zim spared a quick smirk at the battle: Tenn was winning.

But he was not here to watch. Commander Poki blew her finger whistle, calling pause on the current fight. Spleen watched from the front of the crowd, and Zim caught his eye. Spleen just scoffed at Zim's angry look.

"You can't just go around putting on halt any training that you want for your own personal-" Commander Poki began to rant at him, but Zim raised a hand, cutting her off.

He pointed at the tall-headed irken with his sharp gloved finger and said lowly, "I demand a rematch."

And because the rules stated that any challenged rematch was to take precedence over any future or present battles, Tenn and Red scampered out of the box and an overly confident Spleen took their place. Zim marched in after him with fire in his eyes.

"Regardless of what occurred during your previous battle," Commander Poki began as the two elites stared each other down, "I don't want to see anymore permanent maiming. Any attacks against the antennae, eyes, PAK, and any other part of the body that cannot be so easily mended will be met with the utmost seriousness and severe punishment. I am training you to kill enemies, not each other."

With that, she blew her whistle, and Spleen came right at Zim.

It was nothing but muscle memory as Zim ducked out of the way. He couldn't believe how difficult their previous match had been. Had he really been sulking that bad that he couldn't defeat the most predictable fighter in the class?

Spleen came charging right at Zim with bared claws. Zim grabbed him by the arm before he could scratch them across his skin, pulling down at just the right angle to flip the taller elite over his shoulder.

Zim didn't have anything against Spleen. He never had and he still didn't. In fact, the big-headed invader-in-training was of the lowest in his class and barely worth a second glance from Zim. Sure, he may have harmed Zim in a possibly irreversible way, but Zim knew what it was like to get caught up in the heat of battle, he'd been there himself. It just had never occurred to him to go for the antennae.

The rematch had nothing to do with Spleen. It had everything to with gaining back his unfettered confidence that had shattered along with his tiny chitin bones when he'd fallen off the side of Doom's Climb. Not only was he proving to his peers, but he was proving to himself that he was still everything he always bragged about being. And if he so happened to feel the satisfaction of beating this slimy little irken to a pulp along the way then so be it.

Instead of getting up from where he landed, Spleen kicked out, knocking Zim's legs out from under him. He rolled on top of the smaller irken, attacking him with blows. 

Then, even with his hearing impaired, he still somehow picked up the quiet cackling from the audience. It seemed like they wanted to see him fail. Did they want to see him fail? He remembered suddenly why he'd let Spleen win their last battle. Dejected, he let a whine escape him, cowering beneath his opponent as he was riddled with attacks.

Then he remembered what Purple had said. _Purple_. The tall elite Zim so helplessly admired had gone out of his way to get Zim back on track, to tell him to get his shit together. He _wanted_ Zim to win. Why? He'd never wanted that before, in fact he'd always done all that he could to prevent it. Maybe he just found it amusing? Or, _maybe_, he cared.

Either way, he'd been right: Self-conscious looked _terrible_ on him.

Zim caught Spleen by the arm after the fourth strike. He pulled the limb up to his face and sunk his teeth into his flesh.

Spleen recoiled, giving Zim enough time to flip their positions, rolling them both over so he was on top, pinning Spleen to the sandstone ground. He straddled the taller irken's stomach, twisting his arm back slowly until he heard an echoing _pop_ followed by a loud and long scream.

Poki withheld her whistle blow. A broken bone could heal overnight. It was nothing to be picky about.

"I am going to kill you!" Spleen shouted, throwing Zim off of him and across the box. Zim slid across the sand, landing with an _oof_ on his side. Spleen cradled his injury as he hovered over Zim. Before the tiny elite could make the slightest move to roll back onto his feet, the toe of Spleen's boot connected with his gut, sending him back even further.

Before Spleen could land a second attack, Zim grabbed him by the ankle. He fell out of balance and collided again with the dirt. Zim fell on top of him, driving both an elbow and a knee into his gut. They struggled, clawing and biting and kicking and tugging, until Spleen was a bleeding mess in the sand and Zim was seated on top of him, claws leaving deep pink gashes in his purple uniform.

A whistle sounded, falling upon deaf antennae. Poki rolled her eyes and motioned at two different irkens. Tenn and Larb entered the box to drag Zim kicking and screaming off of his comrade.

"It's okay, you won," Larb told him exasperatedly. Zim blinked in realization as the two hoisted him to his feet and released him at the front of the audience.

"Of course I won," Zim spat at Larb, but he looked relieved. He turned to see a reluctant Flobee dragging the limp form of Spleen out of the arena and to the infirmary tent.

Zim panted as his peers gave a reluctant applause. Larb patted him on the shoulder, recoiling as Zim hissed at him, but the tiny irken was grinning despite himself.

He marched out into the neighboring open field and kicked a spout of sand into the air. It rained down red, clouding around him like smoke billowing down. He did it again, shouting his victory into the horizon like a dehydrated man stumbling upon an oasis in the desert.

Poki let out a relieved breath as he continued to kick at the sand, screaming about how great he was. The other elites looked at each other with confusion, mumbling quietly as he reveled in his victory.

"Does he know sparring isn't suppose to be that intense?" Tenn asked Poki with a look of concern.

Poki shook her head. "Not at all," she said.


	6. Talks too Much

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is early but the last one was late and this is also the last chapter so

"And then he starts crying like a little smeet! I mean, seriously, I would have been so embarrassed if I were him, crying in front of everyone over what, a broken bone? It was so pathetic! And don't even get me STARTED on his offensive techniques!"

Skoodge sent his companion a lopsided grin as Zim cheerfully talked his antennae off, going on and on about his fight with Spleen. He described every second of the battle, everything from the quality of every blow sent to the sound of the taller irken's bone snapping beneath his hands. He went fully into detail, not leaving out a single thing despite the fact that Skoodge had been there, too.

Then, when he was done talking about that, he went on to talk about the taller elites, how he had undoubtedly earned their respect. He talked about the red sand that covered the surface of the planet they were training on, going completely off topic to complain about how it got in his boots. He rambled about how he could just barely move his limp antenna, just barely situate it in a position that didn't make him look so defective, about how feeling was slowly beginning to come back to it. He talked about everything that crossed his mind, about the torrent of things that had happened in the span of two of this planet's short days.

Then, expectedly because it had no doubt happened several times before, in the middle of a one-sided, breathless conversation about snacks, Zim froze up, his eyes going wide and blank like a frozen computer screen. His PAK beeped loudly, his eyes drooped closed, and he collapsed onto the dusty floor of their shared recharging tent.

Zim was the only irken Skoodge had ever known who could give himself a PAK overload just by talking. He laughed silently to himself and bent down beside the small invader-in-training. He gingerly scooped him up and into his arms, carrying him over to the corner of the tent and setting him down on the semi-comfortable recharging mat.

A wire extended from the machinery beside the mat and connected to the slumbering irken's PAK as Skoodge fiddled with buttons and knobs. He prayed a good night's rest and a full mechanical recharge would be enough to get his friend's defunct antenna back online. He settled beside the tiny irken and let himself drift off for some much desired recreational shuteye.

•~~~~•~~~~•~~~~•

Zim was never one to listen in on other irken's conversations. What they said - when he wasn't caught up in the midst of an identity crisis - was of no interest to him. Today was no different, a clear sign that he was himself again.

"He talks too much," sneered an irken in mumbled gossip with another as Zim passed them by, "Did you know he overloads his PAK by talking so much?"

Zim didn't even bat an eye. He didn't even ponder the possibility that they were talking about himself.

"Stop making stuff up, Skutch," Flobee said with a roll of his cherry eyes, "I know, he's annoying, but that's just ridiculous. You can't overload your PAK by talking too much. Well, unless you're defective, I guess."

"It's true!" Skutch assured the smaller irken, "One second he'll be talking your antenna off and you'll want to just yank his spooch out just to get him to shut up, and the next," he rolled his eyes in the back of his head, long tongue sticking out of his mouth as he feigned falling backwards, "He's on the ground, out cold."

Zim only snickered as they fell out of earshot. He wondered with a scoff what horribly defective irken they must have been talking about, but then he let the entire thing fade from his mind. He just didn't care about gossip. Unless is was about himself, of course, but there was no way this could have been. He had that trademark confidence back to assure him of such. He kept walking.

Drifting on the outskirts of the mingling crowd of his peers - as usual - Zim couldn't help but let his gaze drift up the side of the towering plateau that was still riddled with his own claw marks. He considered making a second attempt at the whole thing, picturing himself with a grin, standing proud upon the top of the hill, blasting his name into the surface with a PAK laser.

But he really didn't want to disappoint Poki again, and he knew he would whether he made it to the top or not. And he was certain he would not survive that fall again. Not that he _would_ fall again, or anything.

He sighed, craving that satisfaction that came with praise and attention. If he made it all the way up Doom's Climb, he would get his fill of it. If he didn't, well, he wasn't certain he would ever be seen as a capable irken ever again.

He'd beaten Spleen, he'd regained his confidence that he couldn't believe he had ever lost, but had he regained his respect? Had he ever had respect in the first place?

And in the end, did he really need it?

Poki respected him, and that was what really mattered. She saw his greatness even if nobody else did.

Zim tucked the entire train of thought away and wandered back towards his peers with that same old cocky 'I'm better than you' posture that he had carried all of his life.

It wouldn't be much longer before Zim became the direct cause of a good portion of his fellow elite's deaths, including Commander Poki. It wouldn't be long after that he would be moved into military research on Vort, where he would proceed to create a creature of chaos that would devour Irk's most beloved tallest, along with a not quite as memorable but still quite memorable one. Then two tall elites he'd grown up with would be transferred to leadership training, Purple and Red would finally become tallest, and Zim would inevitably, yet obliviously, become an absolute joke.

But for now, he felt like a winner, and he decided he would never let himself feel differently, no matter how many times he fell off the side of a mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So originally, I had a lot more planned for this fic. There was gonna be a mock existence evaluation and everything and in the end Zim was gonna do Doom's Climb again and end up getting to the top. I wrote all of it and then realized that it took away from the entire meaning of this fic.
> 
> I just, Zim needs that one moment of insecurity that caused his blatant refusal to acknowledge any of his failures. Like there had to be _one time_, right?


End file.
